NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seven months after Occupy Wall Street's eviction from Zuccotti Park, the round-the-clock encampment in lower Manhattan that was once the movement's center, one protester has created his own version of the communal living experiment in Brooklyn.

The spacious apartment in Crown Heights where Austin Guest, a 31-year-old Harvard University graduate, lives with another seasoned protester is a far cry from the crowded, chaotic Zuccotti Park of last fall, where hundreds of protesters camped out each night.

Nevertheless, inspired by Zuccotti, with its free meals and free books, Guest said he and his friends are pursuing an Occupy-like experiment in mutual aid.

In the apartment, for example, the protesters follow a code of conduct designed to prevent one person from dominating a conversation. Guest, who majored in performance and media studies at Harvard, said he has had to "unlearn" the sometimes "impenetrable" rhetoric of the Ivy League.

"I was trained to speak in, like, five paragraphs at a time, with really clearly delineated, bulletproof arguments. And that kind of communication doesn't leave a lot of space. That's the point. It's impenetrable. And that's not how we talk in OWS," he said.

Last September, when the Occupy Wall Street encampment sprang up in Zuccotti Park, Guest was working a few blocks away as an online community organizer.

Guest, who is white, moved to the predominantly black neighborhood of Crown Heights on June 1. He and another protester, Marisa Holmes, split the $1,400 monthly rent while they look for a third roommate to lower their costs. A number of other Occupiers come and go but don't pay rent.

Several times a week, Guest bicycles to wealthier Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Park Slope and Cobble Hill, where he and other protesters help themselves to the bread and vegetables that gourmet shops deem spoiled or unfit for sale. On a good night he might find trays of sushi stacked neatly in an oversized trash bag or still-fresh-looking loaves of bread from Caputo Bakery.

He earns money by working for a friend's moving company and by doing freelance community organizing.

A professional online community organizer? And he quit that sweet gig? Wow. Could've become president.

12
posted on 06/17/2012 3:11:48 PM PDT
by Libloather
(The epitome of civility.)

In 4 or 5 years it will be legal for him to run for President of the United States. He already meets current qualifications-Harvard educated, impenetable rhetoric(unless talking about private sector jobs), no real job experience, and a community organizer.

13
posted on 06/17/2012 3:13:49 PM PDT
by TurboZamboni
(Looting the future to bribe the present)

All of these wandering shreds of human debris are union inspired communutty organizers who believe their sloth is covered by "squatters rights!"

They have absolutely no redeeming social value. Their only wish is to "bring it all down, man!"

People who want to destroy all the magnificent works of the descendants of productive white european males are not only hideously ignorant, but are a malevolent danger to any improvements in our earthly existance!!!

No amount of BSing by the MSM or anyone else about there being any kind of equivalence with the much more effective Tea Party element in our society is without foundation!!!

Several times a week, Guest bicycles to wealthier Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Park Slope and Cobble Hill, where he and other protesters help themselves to the bread and vegetables that gourmet shops deem spoiled or unfit for sale. On a good night he might find trays of sushi stacked neatly in an oversized trash bag or still-fresh-looking loaves of bread from Caputo Bakery

I once heard a comedian refer to this type of diet as “freegan.”

20
posted on 06/17/2012 4:26:16 PM PDT
by Conservaliberty
(25 and conservative. I guess I have no heart, Oh, well, makes shooting the bad guys easier.)

Well, I don't think that dumpster-diving is bad at all, actually. I think that it's wonderful that shop owners set aside good food near their dumps for wandering grazers to pick up. I see it as modern-day gleaning. I find it especially wonderful that they risk legal action since allowing poor employees to take home leftovers, or intentionally easing access to "trash" food to the needy is illegal most places. However, if I were a shop owner, I'd be pretty cheesed off if the people taking advantage of my kindness were ivy-league grads with jobs, money, etc. who could, if they wanted, afford to buy food from me rather than freeload off my trash bins. I just *pray* that no poor people in the area go hungry some days just because this panty-waste got to the trash cans first. Never eaten trash can food myself, but I hope I'd be able to swallow my pride and do that before turning to the gov't to feed my kids if it came to it. But who can know what we'd really do??

Sure there's food stamps, and there's no such thing as unavoidable hunger today in America (the schools in my town have free lunch and breakfast all summer long, and it's advertised on main street). But I actually respect the idea that someone would refuse to accept food stamps when temporarily down on their luck, and instead would continue to work for their food by gleaning and accepting charity. I used to work in a restaurant where lots of the guys worked to set aside unsold still-good but illegal-to-save food for some of the very poor employees with big families to feed (like our dishwasher who was probably illegal). I'd still rather see that poor dishwasher take home the food than for him to go hungry or worse, go scam for food stamps.

“Hi. I’m Austin and I’m a professional freeloader...and you can be one too if you apply my principles from my new book “Living Off Society. A Freeloader’s Guide To The Good Life Without Spending A Penny”.”

23
posted on 06/17/2012 6:09:32 PM PDT
by princeofdarkness
(The Obama Administration is circling the wagons. But the Truth Indians are using flaming arrows.)

I used to work at a cafe/bakery, and the bakery side made everything fresh, every day. If you worked the night shift, you could take home whatever cakes or pastries you liked, otherwise they were going in the trash. Perfectly good food that would keep for days afterwards, but the owners were sticklers about only serving the freshest stuff to the customers.

Other restaurants are not so scrupulous. The leftover bread goes in the meatloaf, and burgers that touch the floor go in the “chili” bin.

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